


Something About The Rain

by the_fluff_awakens



Series: I Think Of You When It Rains [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Drabble, Hux is on death row and is very emotional, If You Squint - Freeform, Knights of Ren - Freeform, Lethal Injection, Love Letters, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 22:17:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7010584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_fluff_awakens/pseuds/the_fluff_awakens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Have you ever been under the rain, Ren? Did it rain at all where you were raised? Did your parents let you out in your little rubber boots and oversized raincoat? Did they let you run around skipping on puddles as they watched and laughed? Did you ever like the rain?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>It rained almost constantly where I grew up, but I was never allowed to play in it. My nanny droid could not come with me lest it rust, so I dared not ask it. I would catch cold, my mother reasoned. Playing in the rain is for uncivilized children, my father scolded. I learnt not to ask after my 10th birthday. I also learnt to resent it, much as I resent the things I want now but cannot have.</em></p><p> </p><p>  <em>I wonder if that is why I think of you when it rains.</em></p><p> </p><p>---</p><p>On the night before his execution, General Hux writes a letter to Kylo Ren. A letter he will make sure the knight doesn't read, but he writes it nonetheless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something About The Rain

**Author's Note:**

> So it started raining as I was idling away in front of my computer, and this just came out.

  
   


~~~

  
   


_Something about the rain makes me think of you. I find this strange as we've never been on a planet where it rained. I've never seen what rain does to your thick dark hair, never witnessed raindrops landing on your skin._

_And yet._

_It is raining on this planet I've found myself trapped in right now. I am being kept underground, with no window and barely enough light for me to see what I write. They have given me one small candle, it's flickering yellow light bouncing off the glossy stone walls of my prison. There is a quality to the air, a smell, a crispness, that tells me it's pouring outside, up there where the planet's sun is most likely hidden behind grey clouds. Up there where the planet is a muted imitation of its usual state._

_Have you ever been under the rain, Ren? Did it rain at all where you were raised? Did your parents let you out in your little rubber boots and oversized raincoat? Did they let you run around skipping on puddles as they watched and laughed? Did you ever like the rain?_

_It rained almost constantly where I grew up, but I was never allowed to play in it. My nanny droid could not come with me lest it rust, so I dared not ask it. I would catch cold, my mother reasoned. Playing in the rain is for uncivilized children, my father scolded. I learnt not to ask after my 10th birthday. I also learnt to resent it, much as I resent the things I want now but cannot have._

_I wonder if that is why I think of you when it rains. It might shock you to learn that my resentment, my constantly irritable mood around you, is but a mere pretense. An act of self-preservation, if you will. No matter, you will not read this anyway. I am scheduled to be executed tomorrow at first light, and I plan on burning this before they come for me._

_They say they no longer hang people here, that it is barbaric, as if my past actions don't make me deserving of barbarism. I scoffed when they showed me the table I will be made to lie on, with the leather straps designed to bind my wrists and ankles. Thick warm leather, not the cold hard steel our Order prefers. They wish to make me comfortable as they kill me. They showed me the syringes, the needles long and thick to accommodate the syrupy concoctions they will pump into my veins that will gently ease me to sleep, not unlike the warm blue milk I used to drink before bedtime as a child._

_I'd rather have the hanging, but they wouldn't be swayed._

_My candle is almost out, and I suppose I should end this...whatever it is. A confession? An admission? A goodbye._

_Do you remember the day you first came aboard the Finalizer? You didn't introduce yourself, you didn't need to and you knew it. I was informed of your arrival by Leader Snoke, and though it felt like being demoted (having to share my command with what I then thought of was a mere brute with no real experience running a ship) I had no say in the matter. I merely accepted my fate. You stood next to me on your first day, quiet and imposing, dramatic and mysterious, and before I'd even seen your face, I'd felt drawn to you. I cannot explain it to you in words, I cannot, even now, explain it to myself. You probably felt my curiosity immediately anyway, and we'll leave it at that._

_The first time I saw your face, I was so taken aback, I'd almost lost my footing, almost stumbled on my words as I reported to Leader Snoke of your inexplicable choice to let the BB unit escape with the map. You might have noticed had you not turned your face away to hide how young you looked, had you not so determinedly avoided looking in my direction. I remember walking away from that conference room, resenting you even more._

_Ah, the candle has burnt out, I forgot to keep an eye on it. How am I to destroy this letter now? Maybe I allowed it to burn out, maybe I've decided to clutch this farewell in my fist, stubbornly refusing to ease into my death. Perhaps someone will pick it up when they take my body away. Perhaps they will simply throw it away without having read a word of it, for who would be interested in the written babblings of a dying man? Knowing them, however, they will take this missive from my hand even before my death is final. They will expect to learn secrets about the First Order. They will only find the secrets of a lonely general._

_Somebody is coming now, perhaps to bring me my last meal. Can you believe they actually asked me what I wanted? I asked for a packet of cigarras and a bottle of whiskey, just to spite them. I wonder what they'll bring instead. Probably some overly rich, nauseatingly sweet dish I will barely be able to_

  


* * *

  
When General Hux wakes up, his mouth feels too thick, his head too heavy. There's something behind his eyeballs that desperately wants to crawl out. He thinks, _kriffing hell, I thought death would at least be painless_. Despite the pounding in his head, he forces one eye open, finds a familiar-looking steel ceiling and an obnoxious hanging light above him, and closes his eye again. The groan that escapes him is involuntary, and he opens both eyes to check his surroundings once more.

The walls are durasteel, not wet stone. The air is not fresh, but recycled and thick. The surface he's on is hard, cold. Metal. His limbs are not bound, but a thick black cloak is draped over his body.

Across from him, an identical cot protrudes from the wall, where the hulking figure of Kylo Ren sits. He takes a moment to appreciate the sight: Ren is unmasked, the hair on top of his head in tight braids to keep them from falling over his big brown eyes. His mouth is as pink as ever, teeth chewing absentmindedly at his plush lower lip. His nose is inches away from a piece of crumpled paper.

_Oh kriff!_

He finds he is frozen in place, for once at a loss of a next step. He's spent his whole life strategizing and planning everything, but is failing to do so at the moment. He blames the drugs that are still in his system. The drugs that should have killed him. Maybe they did, he thinks. This could very well be his hell, couldn't it? His feelings laid out on a piece of paper, and the last person he ever wanted to read them mere feet from him, doing exactly that.

He startles when Ren looks up and catches his eye. He shrinks under the heavy cloak, but doesn't look away, like a trapped animal keeping its eye on a stalking predator. Before he can say anything, Ren folds the paper slowly— _gingerly_ —and absurdly tucks it inside his collar. He thinks about asking for it back, but Ren looks so proprietary, Hux almost thinks it isn't the letter he'd written in his cell. The pounding in his head is now matched by one in his chest.

"How are you feeling?" Ren asks, still on his cot.

"What happened?" He doesn't like how his voice sounds, rough and small and insipid. "How am I still alive? I watched them–"

"We arrived just in time," Ren answers simply. "They'd only injected you with the first solution—meant to put you to sleep—and half the second—meant to paralyze."

"We?" Hux asks.

"My knights and I. We killed every one in the facility."

Hux takes a moment to let this sink in. He isn't dead, he's away from the prison that held him for more than a month.

"Did Leader Snoke send you?" Somehow he knows the answer before he's even finished asking the question.

Ren's brow furrows, his lips purse, and he finally breaks eye contact. Staring at his heavy boots, he simply says, "No."

"Then why did you–" He trails off when Ren looks up again, a challenge in his eyes.

"Why wouldn't I?"

Hux doesn't know what to say to that. He also doesn't know what to say to the fact that the cloak he's clutching around his body is Ren's.

"I saved you on Starkiller," he finally manages to say. "You felt you owed me?"

Ren doesn't answer for a while.

"No."

"No?"

"No, it didn't rain much where I grew up."

Hux swallows the lump in his throat, what little color he had draining from his face.

"And yes, I did feel your...curiosity."

Hux watches as Ren gets up from his cot, pulls the cloak closer to Hux's chin, then trails a gentle finger along his cold cheekbone.

"Rest, General," Ren commands. "I won't have you dying on me now."

  
   


~~~

  
   


**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://the-fluff-awakens.tumblr.com/).


End file.
